


Two Magnets

by thatbluenote



Category: The Bright Sessions (Podcast)
Genre: Chloe is not ace, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, F/F, F/M, Gen, I started this back before ace!Chloe was canon, Slow Build, Slow Burn, atypicals
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-02-17
Updated: 2018-04-06
Packaged: 2018-09-25 03:46:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 7,664
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9801275
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thatbluenote/pseuds/thatbluenote
Summary: After that first meeting, Chloe and Damien's powers collide.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Italics are quotes from the podcast, except when they're not. This story starts after episodes 17A/B. Lotsa noncanon/canon divergence stuff for everything after S1 because denial is actually a helpful coping mechanism, look it up.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> What Chloe was thinking later that day. Damien, too.

_I just think, what would I do if I had his power? He just uses it to try and spend time with people, only to be disappointed when he realizes they wouldn’t be pretending to like him if he weren’t projecting his own desire for company._

Dr. Bright’s words run through Chloe’s mind later that evening. She still can’t quite believe Damien’s power, or their strange encounter.

She had been so shocked to find that barrenness where normally a person’s thoughts would have bloomed out in a confusing tangle. And that silence in his mind felt like being wrapped in a thick blanket of sudden, cold quiet.

Unnatural, she thinks, shivering a little at the memory.

But is that right?

He is a fellow atypical after all, she reminds herself. In another time, we would all have been burnt at the stake.

She smiles, thinking, _Are you a good witch or a bad witch_?

It isn’t the magic but the choices we make with it, Chloe thinks.

And what would happen, she muses idly, if he no longer had to choose?

 

Chloe can always feel her mental control slipping after a difficult day, once she grows tired.

Alone in her apartment later that night, thinking back on the events of the day, the thoughts that crowd around her from the building start coming in a torrent of noise that she can’t shut off.

It’s like trying to listen to an intense Dvorak symphony and her favorite Sufjan album at the same time, and the whole tangle is laid on top of a dull throb of a headache. Chloe sits on her bed, trying to follow just one thread, to let things settle down. She tries to practice the first and simplest meditation exercises that Joan taught her, but it’s not enough.

If she had a bottle of wine she just knows she’d make some poor decisions with it, just to gain a few hours’ peace, but luckily she’s learned it’s not a good idea to keep it around for that exact reason.

Defeated, she lies down in the dark, praying for sleep to come easily for once.

Closing her eyes against the pulse of her headache, she realizes that she blames herself for Damien’s interruption that day. If he was only on their side, she could have kept him quiet long enough to keep listening in on Dr. Bright and Agent Green. She vows to herself that it won’t be an obstacle next time, if there is a next time.

She finds herself thinking, just for a moment, of that pocket of silence in Damien. _Aren’t you enjoying the silence_? Just the memory of it seems to quiet her mind slightly, so she tries to focus on it a little more.

And the strangest thing that comes to her then is the realization that it wasn’t right to say his thoughts were barren. Not exactly.

Because deeper in that cold silence, there had been something. Like a deep, still well in the darkness, imperceptibly.

If it had a color, Chloe thought sleepily, she would paint it as the deepest, blackest blue in the middle of that void of darkness. But it was there. And that blackest blue was the color of the sleep she sank into, gratefully, fitfully.

 

+

 

When Damien left abruptly that day, he wanted nothing more than to hide from the sting of Joan’s words. He hated not getting the last word.

Joan who, like it or not, got better at resisting him every time, knew too much about him after all this time. He almost regretted pushing her that far. Almost.

And then there was Chloe -- such a promising start, and yet their encounter had gone so pear-shaped it made him want to punch a wall or laugh, or both.

He didn’t want to think about how many times during their conversation he had tried, by sheer instinct, to push Chloe’s mind in a different direction. Nor did he want to think about how satisfying it was each time his power glanced off hers, futilely, her words wresting him in a different direction. Often an insulting direction, maybe, but it was satisfying nonetheless.

Maddening. But satisfying.

He turned his collar up against the bracing April wind, which went a long way toward distracting him from stewing over it all.

But just then, he was startled to hear his name, and he looked up to see Sarah walking up to him, a coffee in one hand and a small paper bag in the other, an exasperated look in those cannily expressive eyes of hers.

He recovered from his surprise and smiled at her, turning on the roguish charm, back in familiar territory now. This wasn’t the first time he had sent Sarah on a random errand, nor the first time he’d managed to get a bite to eat into the bargain.

“I think you have something to do with this--” she said, handing him the bag, “--because I don’t even like croissants. And it sure was weird to find myself at _your_ favorite cafe when there are at least six others closer to Dr. Bright’s office.” She gave him a pointed look.

“You got me, Sarah,” he said with a disarming smile. He couldn’t help but try to charm her a little bit. “Sorry ‘bout that, you know a guy sometimes needs a moment to chat with his fellow atypicals. And don’t tell me you didn’t want that latte.”

“No comment.” She took a sip, watching him over the lid of the cup. “I think you owe me like, twenty dollars of pastry by now.”

“Actually, I don’t think I do,” he said easily, breaking her gaze to watch the passing cars with a false nonchalance.

“You know what--what am I even saying? Don’t worry about it!” She laughed.

“Hey, there’s that smile again!” The look on Sarah's face almost made him regret these little slip-ups he was always getting into with her, but there were certain things he just needed and Dr. B’s competent office manager seemed to always get in his way.

“Well anyway, I’ve got to go.”

“Sarah, just one more thing...”

“Sure thing!”

“I’m sure you’ve got all of Joanie’s clients in your phone, right? I think you’re going to text me Miss Chloe’s number.” Without a moment’s hesitation, Sarah started typing on her phone, and a moment later, he felt his own phone buzz in his pocket. It would be satisfying, he thought, these little persuasions, if they weren’t so maddeningly predictable. “Thanks, doll.”

“Don’t mention it. Bye, Damien!”

“Bye bye now.” He watched her go, the wind catching her hair and her coat swinging a little as she walked. He took a bite of his croissant and swallowed it, along with that momentary pang of guilt for imposing on her once again.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Our magnets meet again.
> 
> Chloe records a phone session with Dr. Bright about Frank and a frustrating recent development.

It took him a week of starting and deleting texts to her before he admitted defeat.

A week of an uncomfortable realization: what could he possibly say? Convincing Sarah to give him Chloe’s number had seemed like a clever idea, but he could just imagine her response, and it wouldn’t be pretty. Stalker. Unethical loser. Creep. That was a dead end, then.

So he went back to his old habits, pacing the neighborhood on long walks and watching, always watching. He would wait far enough down the block that Chloe couldn’t see or sense him as he watched her arrive for her Tuesday appointment with Dr. B. That bright flash of her hair in the distance. But now that he’d met her, it wasn’t enough.

He couldn’t get out of his head her words that afternoon. _I would rather stand in a crowd than face whatever’s going on in your head._ He walked and walked, as he always did, but now he found himself arguing back and forth with the memory of that conversation.

It was a Friday night when he became bored enough, and decided to deliberately cross paths with her. It was just for fun (he told himself), just to see what would happen.

He had learned enough about her habits to arrange a “coincidence” near the university campus. And so he walked down the sidewalk just as she was exiting a little wine shop with a friend, who he thought he recognized as another of Dr. Bright’s patients, perhaps.

They were sharing a laugh, and Chloe was looking down, searching for something in her bag. He had been ready to rope in a few passers-by to arrange this little “surprise,” but now, smugly, he realized that wouldn’t even be necessary.

He carefully arranged his features in a look of calculated innocence as he sauntered up to her, and looked at her just as Chloe’s head jerked up with a look of shock. He had caught her truly off guard. She had felt the presence of his mind before she had even seen how close he was. It was too perfect.

But he wasn’t prepared for what happened next. In the moment their eyes met, a jolt of sudden coolness shocked him, and he stumbled badly. It was like stepping into an undertow current, the sidewalk suddenly uncertain beneath his shoes. _What the--_

Instead of making the cutting remark he had on the tip of his tongue, he found himself stumbling into Chloe, their shoulders colliding clumsily.

“Sorry--” he stuttered out, _oh god, this was so not the plan--_

“Whoa, are you okay?” Chloe reached out to catch his arm almost on instinct, but in his embarrassment he recoiled a little, almost spinning away from her hand as he regained his footing.

“Hey--” her friend was saying, confused.

“Damien?” Chloe said, flabbergasted, plainly demanding an answer.

He looked back at her, ready to make a joke of it, but behind the suspicion written plainly on her face, he could see something else -- pity.

It was all he could do to shake his head in nonresponse and move on.

Fuck pity. But also, _what in the hell just happened_?

He quickened his step, cursing inwardly. He could hear them still talking as he moved down the block and out of sight.

“Chloe, do you know that guy?”

“It’s...complicated.” The ghost of her rueful laugh echoed around the corner and followed him home.

 

+

 

_ Ring, ring _ .

“Hello?”

“Hi Dr. Bright!”

“Hi Chloe, it’s good to hear from you. How are you doing today?”

“I’m doing great, actually. It’s been kind of a weird week but you know, I’ve been doing that new breathing exercise you taught me, every day between my busiest classes, and it’s been so helpful.”

“I’m so glad to hear you’re able to make time to do it, if it helps you. If you ever want to practice more, or try a new technique, let me know. I still have access to the extensive meditation resources developed by the A.M. during my time there.”

“Oh, wow. I would feel weird using their stuff but I guess, if it works, it works, right?”

“Right. Better to focus on the results. The A.M. certainly doesn’t own meditation.”

“No, luckily! You know, I feel so lucky to be working with you. It makes it so hard when I’m with Frank sometimes and just wish he understood how helpful you could be to him, too.”

“Have you made any progress talking to him about...what I do?”

“Well...yes and no. I think he understands how things have been getting so much better for me because of you, I mean he just gets me like that, in a really, really nice way. On his good days, I mean. But even on his good days, I’m not sure anything good I say about psychology can get through his paranoia.”

“I understand. Chloe, you have to remember that as much as you want to help Frank, you don’t have to take full responsibility for him. He’s an adult, too.”

“I know. He’s just suffered so much. I couldn’t live with myself if I didn’t try, knowing what I know about his experiences.”

“Well you know what they say, Chloe…”

“What’s that?”

“'With great power comes great responsibility.'”

“Dr. Bright! I never would have figured you for a comic book fan.”

“I’m no Stan Lee, but I can tell you have a hero’s soul, Chloe.”

“Well in that case, I’ll have to get to work on finding a mutant spider to bite me! But I think that quote is so right. I just can’t fathom any other way to approach Frank’s situation. Even with everything that’s been going on lately...”

“Oh? Something new?”

“It’s his job placement stuff. I got him a referral from the VA for this agency that matches veterans with special job openings. He doesn’t even have to fill out an application, he just has to go meet them in person. I even offered to go with him to the job sites, when I can. But he’s gone to...four, maybe five of them so far, and he’s been rejected every time.”

“Chloe, this really sounds like something his social worker needs to help him with.”

“Maybe. Here’s the thing. I’ve kind of...listened in on his meetings, or interviews, whatever you want to call them. Once at a garden center, another one at an office supply warehouse.”

“And I suppose you couldn’t help overhear their thoughts.”

“Don’t say it like that, please, I tried to give them as much privacy as I could. But sometimes, when someone is, you know…”

“Loud? Scared? Angry?”

“Yeah. I can’t help but hear it. It’s stronger than anything else around me. Stronger than my meditations.”

“What is happening, exactly?”

“I don’t know the details, but it seems like Frank is...intimidating. And then he can sort of tell that the other person is scared of him, and so he gets worked up, and yells a little, and the whole interaction is just a total mess.”

“I see.”

“So he’s got these perfect opportunities lined up and yet...no job. It almost makes me wish…”

“Wish what, Chloe?”

“Ugh, it’s stupid, I know. I'm just so frustrated! So many things are working out for him and he's made so much progress, and there's just this one thing standing in his way! I just wish I could make them _feel_ how badly he wants a job.”

“Chloe…”

“I know, I know. It’s silly.”

“No, it sounds like...well I’m sure your intentions are very sweet, and Frank is lucky to have you as a friend. It’s just that…”

“What is it? What?”

“It sounds like you’re wishing for...well, Damien’s power. You’re wishing you could project what you want, just like he can.”

“Oh my God, Dr. Bright. Oh. I didn’t even think...”

“Chloe, I’m not saying you’re anything like him. I’m just here to help you think through these things.”

“I feel so stupid! Oh my God. And after everything horrible Damien’s done to you, too, for me to say that--it’s just awful. I don’t want to think that way! That’s not who I am!”

“Take a deep breath, Chloe. Chloe, are you listening to me? You couldn’t be less like Damien if you tried.”

“I guess. I’m sorry, Dr. Bright, I think I should go. I really want to think about all this.”

“Okay. We can talk more, whenever you’re ready. I’m here for you, Chloe.”

“Thanks, Dr. Bright. I’ll call you next week like usual, okay?”

“Okay. Have a good week. Take care. I’ll talk to you soon, Chloe.”

“Goodbye, Dr. Bright.

_ End call. _


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Collisions in the art studio, and afterward.
> 
> (Please note rating change, also edits to this chapter after initial posting.)

Chloe reveled in the afternoon light that streamed in through the windows of the second-floor art studio where she was working on a painting with Frank. Ever since she had persuaded him to come with her to the art department for extra painting sessions, they had made excellent progress on a couple of the trickier compositions stuck in his head.

Except this one. This one was proving a lot harder. They had scrapped three attempts so far, discarding the efforts of long sessions in the studio.

But when the light was clear and perfect on a day like this, she couldn’t help but feel like everything was going to work out, somehow.

The art studio was a large open space on the second floor, with twelve-foot ceilings and tall windows overlooking the park-like blocks of the city campus. Work tables and easels and stools clustered in groups on the cement floor.

It was quiet here at this time of day, with little more than the muffled noise from the street below to keep them company.

Perched on her paint-flecked stool, Chloe listened as Frank gave his halting description of the image again and she tried gamely to fit his words together with what she could see in his thoughts. He hadn't liked the versions where she had simply copied down what she saw, so they were trying something new today.

She mixed a tricky shade of warm, ultramarine blue on her palette.

“Is this getting closer to the color?” Strains of painful memory wove together to form this painting in his mind. Frank gazed distractedly at the colorful palette in her hand, clutching a paintbrush in his own hand. 

It had been Chloe’s idea to distract Frank with a separate canvas while she worked. It was easier to capture the nuances when he wasn’t critiquing her every brushstroke. She was determined to get this version right.

Their two easels were set not quite side-by-side. Frank’s first move when they started had been to angle his easel to the side for privacy from her line of sight. Mild agitation roiled under his thoughts as he worked. She felt a bit like an unbalanced washing machine herself, trying to sort out the highs and lows of everything in him, and in herself, and all around them in the building and outside. It was a mess. She was working on it. She was getting better every day.

“No, I’m sorry,” Frank sighed, worrying the brush in his hand. “Can you mix something closer to the aquamarine color from before?”

“Frank, please. Don’t apologize,” Chloe said, unscrewing her tube of cyan acrylic. “I want to do this for you. We can take all the time you need.”

She bent to mix the color again, focusing on the shiny, blunt palette knife, letting its smooth, rasping sound soothe her. The sound was like a smooth pebble plucked from the rapids -- Frank’s nervous energy and the froth of his pained memories below that, and the seething murmur of all the thoughts of the people in the building around them, and the city outside. Breathe, and listen. Mix, and mix again.

 

+

 

Damien shifted on the bench and saw the bright flash of Chloe’s palette knife as it caught the afternoon sun. Even from ground level, the tension in her shoulders was visible. _That’s new_. Usually Frank was the stressed out one in these little painting sessions.

He was done cursing himself for a fool, a stalker. This bench was where he sat to watch her work with Frank, every week. He knew her habits, he knew her schedule (enough to avoid being seen, anyway), but Chloe herself remained frustratingly out of reach.

After the incident outside the wine bar, his curiosity about her only intensified. After the embarrassment faded, he wondered about that unexpected pull, whatever caused that odd collision -- _had she done something to cause that? Had her friend?_ \-- and so he found himself drawn to her.

 _I would rather stand in a crowd than face whatever’s going on in your head._ Damien had heard her words on a loop in his head for weeks now. Her disgust and pity were a problem, but he was also curious to know if there was more to this...blind spot in his powers. And in hers; he had ruled out her friend's influence (time traveler, unlikely) after a brief after-hours perusal of Joanie’s files.

Usually, this would be _so easy_. He would find her at Joanie’s office again, force the...whatever it was their powers did together, and voila. Problem solved, curiosity sated; go home, Damien.

It was more than that, though. He burned to spit out every sharp word on his tongue, every clever retort in his pocket, just to convince her. Just to see what would happen. In moments of weakness, he thought maybe he could make her see. She is the only person, after all, he will ever have that luxury with. The only person immune to him.

There had also been times when this was something more than an idle obsession. There had been nights when her bright hair appeared to him as a beacon in his darker dreams: her face and her expressive eyes the shifting hazel color of an autumn lake as she turned to look at him, on the verge of speaking. Her hair vivid as a flame. Her lips parted, but before she spoke, he awoke in a sweat, limbs heavy with a kind of ache, wishing to dip back down into that dark space of the dream between them.

He told himself that following her to the art studio each week wasn’t about the dreams. He told himself that every single time.

 

+

 

“It’s no use, no use. Don’t you see? It’s not the color, Chloe... the whole thing is -- it’s not right -- no, I -- you can’t--” Frank stood up so fast that his stool clattered to the floor behind him. “Don’t you--”

Alarmed, Chloe leaped to her feet. The intensity of his anger and frustration bubbled to the surface so fast that she barely put down her paintbrush before he reached the canvas. He grabbed the stool she had been sitting on and flung it violently across the room. For a moment it hung in the air at the top of its arc and she held her breath, and then it crashed down on a table, metal on wood, supplies scattering.

Chloe circled away warily, keeping Frank at a distance. Her stomach dropped and his thoughts pulsed like thunder when he grabbed a boxcutter from a pile of supplies. She barely kept her own panic attack at bay beneath the onslaught of his psyche's furious explosion.

He stabbed the canvas with the blade, blue paint smearing over his hands. Frank chanted in a monotone that matched the gray suffocation of the panic in his mind that spread over to Chloe. “No. No. No, no, this is bullshit, no…”

Chloe’s heart pounded in her throat as she struggled to separate herself from the sounds in her mind. _What meditation should I try when Frank and I are stuck in a psychic PTSD feedback loop, doctor?_ _P.S., what meditations are good against knives?_ She backed up until she felt the windows against her back. The sunlight, _yes_. She leaned into it, not caring that Frank was toppling the canvas in his rage and kicking over more stools, still raving.

How had she missed that he was so close to the edge, so close to breaking, this whole time? Usually, he kept himself far away from her when things were this bad, which she only knew about because he would reappear and make vague allusions to “a really bad night” or “a bad stretch of time.”

Chloe could feel the sunshine at her back, just barely. Everything else was a welter of panic and confusion, and her breathing was scattered at best, but she her mobile phone was only eight steps away.

Eight steps.

Frank was a storm, elemental with rage, but he didn’t look at her. Layers of old and new trauma emanated from him in distressing waves of nausea that Chloe could barely withstand, but she could hear him focused only on the image on the canvas. That would give her enough time.

Her head rang like a bell, a migraine aura made of sheer panic. She could call for help, the right kind of help, Joan's help, hell even the A.M., before the police showed up and things got really bad.

She would do it. _Crash_. Another stool.

She had to do it. The clatter of easels collapsing, hurled against the wall.

And she would have done it if Frank hadn’t suddenly gone as still as a statue, seconds before Damien burst into the room.

 

+

 

All his careful debates fell away when he saw that metal stool go spinning violently through the air. Chloe haloed in sun against the window, cowering.

In that instant, it was no longer petty ego and curiosity stewing in his mind, it was a purer, deeper panic and he hated how it hooked him down deep in his gut. Damien leaped to his feet and raced into the art building before he could think. On the second floor, he heard a crash and the sputtering, panicky tones of Frank’s voice in the distance. He ran down the cursedly long hall. He tried something he had never done before, reaching to the absolute limit of his ability, and _shoved_ his desire into Frank’s mind before he could even reach the door,  _before he even saw her--_

He opened the door, heart pounding, and Frank stood motionless before the wreckage of a canvas, a paint-covered knife in his hand. Amid the askew, broken stools and easels, Frank had only a distracted, gentle look on his face. The silence was heavy in his wake.

Chloe turned to see Damien standing in the doorway. In that instant, he saw that she understood what he’d done.

“Chloe--”

“Damien. What a surprise.” Despite her sharp tone, her face was almost bloodless and her breath ran shallow. He saw her fighting for control and maybe losing. Damien approached her in concern. On instinct he pushed toward her with his usual control, thinking, _breathe, damnit_. It did nothing. But then, there was that strange tug again. He paused, swayed forward a little under its influence, like the floor had gone slanted, and she gave him a strange look. After a beat, Chloe's posture eased, as if she had suddenly regained a measure of control.

 _Interesting_. 

Chloe said nothing. She merely gave him a look and went to check on to Frank. He saw something in her eyes, maybe it was a fine line between wary gratitude and plain irritation. Like it or not, he had done her a favor, hadn't he, coming up here? From what he could tell, maybe he'd managed something more than simply calming a ticking time bomb of a man.

“Frank and I were just finishing up,” she said, daring him to say otherwise. Damien didn’t bother to ask the obvious questions, he simply raised his eyebrows as she deftly removed the boxcutter from Frank's hand and cleaned the paint off his hands with a rag. 

“Is that so?”

“You really shouldn't be here.” He still heard the smallest shake of adrenaline in her voice.

“Well, I'm sorry I interrupted your little class,” he said, unable to keep the barb of exasperation out of his voice. “I thought you might need--”

“I didn’t _need_ anything,” she interrupted smoothly. He heard that barely veiled fire in her words, an anger meant to warn him away. _Fuck it, I’m still spoiling for a fight_ , he thought.

Chloe tried to guide the calm but distracted Frank over to the door. Damien watched her struggle at it for a moment longer. She could not get the older man to take his coat and satchel.

Damien couldn’t help but make a show of it. He pretended to admire the view out the large windows to the campus and the busy street below. “Nice view. All these floor-to-ceiling windows...must be like being on stage.”

That caught her attention. Her head snapped up and she fixed him with a look of disgust. “Well, how long have you been enjoying the show?”

“Long enough.”

“Do you enjoy being such a low life, or have you just forgotten what it's like to be normal?” It stung, but he ignored it. Instead, he watched pointedly as she continued to get Frank to the door. The man would not put his arm into his jacket, sweetly clueless in his passive calm as Chloe tried harder and harder to get through to him.

“I think normal is a little overrated, don't you? For instance, wouldn't it be...helpful...if you knew someone who could convince your pal Frank to leave?”

“Oh, come on, Damien. Are you making him want to stay here?"

“No, actually. But I could make that happen if that's what you want.” He was being obtuse, pushing like usual, and he didn’t care.

She sighed in frustration and when she next spoke, he almost couldn’t hear her muttering behind Frank's back as she tried to drape the coat over his shoulders. “What I really want is just one normal day, just one! Just one nice, quiet day...with no _interference_  --" louder now, shoving Frank's arm through the strap of his satchel, "--from some _abnormal asshole_ who can't decide whether to be a knight in shining armor or a Bond villain.”

With that, Damien made just the slightest effort, and Frank abruptly walked out of the room. He left so quickly that Chloe stumbled. Damien leaned into the hallway to toss him a half-hearted wave. “Don’t you mean some _atypical_ asshole?”

“No, Damien. You’re an abnormal asshole who just happens to be an atypical. There’s a difference.”

Her look pinned him where he stood. This fierce creature. And he made a decision.

 

+

 

Chloe felt her hands tremble a little with the aftermath of adrenaline as she packed up her things. She tried to steady her hands as she crossed the room to the utility sink. Damien’s eyes followed her. He sauntered over and fiddled idly with the jars of paint thinner next to the sink while she rinsed out her brushes.

“Here’s the thing, Chloe. You can insult me, hate me all you want--hey, get in line--but I think this little...quiet...thing between us is helpful.” He started out joking, but by the end his voice had gone quiet.

She looked up, startled. It was the first sincere thing she had ever heard him say. She saw the hesitation on his face, too, as he waited for her reply.

“Helpful,” she echoed, gnawing the side of her cheek for a moment, trying to decide how much to say. She didn’t want to admit out loud that he, of all people, might have been responsible for how quickly she recovered in the wake of Frank’s attack and her own panic.

In that collision, there _had_ been something more. She needed to work out exactly what, though. 

The longer she delayed answering him, the more the unvoiced desperation in him clawed to the surface. So he pushed, just a little.

She was waiting for it this time. She reached into his silence and that did it, the smallest well of gravity opened again. She pulled a black hole out of thin air, held it in the palm of her hand like nothing.

Neither of them said a word for a long time, the cold water cascading over her handful of brushes in the sink, forgotten. Finally, he reached over and shut off the tap.

“Let me buy you a drink.” It cost him something to say this.

She didn’t trust him further than she could throw him, but she was curious, too.

“Okay, Damien. But I’m buying.”

 

+

 

Chloe walked straight to the emptiest dive bar he had ever seen. She walked _fast_. 

They walked down three or four blocks of demolished buildings, torn down for some construction project, and he was amazed to see this abandoned stretch of urban decay harbored a ratty little tavern, way at the end of the street.

Chloe shucked her coat off in a booth and walked up to the bar to order and he followed her, eyeing the dingy surroundings warily. “Well, this is...unique. I would have guessed you were a cocktails-and-fancy-food girl,” he joked, eyeing the two or three regulars sitting silently at the other end of the bar.

“I know a lot about avoiding people.” When the bartender walked up, Chloe looked at Damien with a sickly sweet smile and said, “Remember, no tricks.” He took the hint and went back to the booth, clenching his jaw in annoyance. She returned with two whiskeys and two beers for them and downed her liquor in one shot before she even sat down.

“Bottoms up, then,” he said, nonplussed. The whiskey burned acrid on the way down and he grimaced. “See, this is the problem with all your moral qualms about my power, or whatever. I could at least convince them to pour you a better scotch…”

“I like you more when you’re confused, Damien. Let’s go back to that. This has already been a really awful day so let’s not drag it out. What do you think happened today, exactly? I mean...what the fuck?”

There it was.

He bit back a grin and took a swallow of his beer. “What do I know? I’m just as confused as you.”

“I don’t buy that, actually.” She gazed at him over the rim of her pint glass and her eyes were serious.

“No? Because you just bought my drinks and said you like me confused.”

She rolled her eyes. “No. I still think you’re an awful human being. You’re just...easier to deal with when you’re confused. What happened today...sorry, Damien. You can manipulate and doublespeak all you want, you can go around to every university bar in this city and charm your way into the fifty-year scotch and as many beds as you like, but it’s too late. Something happened today and something happened the other night on the sidewalk, too. I’m not going to let you pretend you’re invulnerable.” Chloe leaned over the table toward him, intense and heated and untouchable.

“You know, among the many, many wrong impressions you have of me, the one about me being some kind of demented pick-up artist might be the worst.”

“Don’t change the subject.”

“No, listen. If you’re going to hate me, at least get your facts straight. Do you really think I get my rocks off like that? Mind control really only works as long as I want the other person to be helpless. How many puppets have you made out with lately? I’m sure that’s someone’s kink, but it sure as hell ain’t mine. You saw what Frank was like. He probably woke up when he was down the block from the art building, pretty pissed off.” He cursed himself, wondering how the conversation had gone so far off the track. _Puppet kink?_ But her scorn had also woken something in him that he tried not to think about too often: the disappointment and abandonment and loneliness repeated over years, decades. “If you think being rejected sucks, try being rejected after someone figures out how you got through their defenses in the first place. It’s...not pretty.”

She absorbed this and seemed to consider. “So, what happened with Joan…”

He flushed and did not meet her eyes. “That was a mistake I can never undo. There was...there was something between us, once. I was wrong to think I could simply...uncover her feelings without consequence. Never again.”

“So, the monster has developed a moral conscience after all.” Amused, Chloe sat back and regarded him with a satisfied look.

“What?”

“Well, for one thing, Sam owes me twenty bucks on a bet.”

 

In the small silence that followed, Chloe steeled herself with another sip of her beer before saying what had been on her mind all night. “Joan and I talked after that day you were in her office, when I sensed nothing from you but a blank, dark void…”

“You rang?” He raised his glass in a mocking salute. She saw in his dark eyes that he didn’t like where this was going.

“But that’s not actually true.” He cocked an eyebrow. “And after you...when you came up to me in the art studio…” The alcohol in her bloodstream made all the other voices in her head blend into a dizzying hum that she could ignore a little easier. But also, there was his silence, and it dampened everything just that little bit more. She took a breath. “Whatever this thing is, it pushed all the voices out, cleared all the...noise, the color. The panic.” This felt dangerous to share, but she needed him to understand.

She’s got him riveted. He sat so still, remembering, and his face softened from its usual mask of pretense.

He’s still wary. “What do you mean, it’s not actually true? What part?”

“There’s something there. Maybe magnets that repel isn’t quite the right metaphor.”

“You’ve been going too deep on Dr. B’s theoretical lectures. I never went in for the fancy metaphors and all that stuff…”

She sat back in the booth. “Okay, forget the metaphors. It would be an interesting experiment, though. To find out what I can...what this is. I know you’re curious, just like me.”

He swallowed and she saw the fine bones of his throat click and shift. “Sure,” he said with a casualness that she did not believe for one second. “Experiment. Huh. I guess I should be...concerned if you somehow learned to worm your way into my thoughts.” _Too late_.

“I _have_ been practicing my meditations more lately. I bet I could…”

“What?”

She studied him intently, letting him grow uncomfortable under her appraising gaze. “You know what it’s like, Damien, wanting something so badly when you’ve never had it?”

It took him a moment to answer. She read something darker that flickered in his eyes before he looked away. “You know I do.”

“For me, it’s silence. The thing I always want and can never have. That’s why I kind of like talking to you. It’s like you’re this...harbor. A little piece of quiet.” She dared him to second-guess this flattery, knowing he liked it too much.

“So you’re saying you want me, Chloe, admit it.” He chuckled darkly, but when he met her eyes, it was like swimming out over the edge of an underwater cliff. It shocked him and he pushed back on instinct. For a fleeting second, their powers met again and she felt that odd dancing interplay once more. It caused him to sway forward in his seat, his eyes wide and unamused. She sat up straighter, triumphant. “What. The fuck. Was that.”

“Fascinating,” she said half to herself. It’s heady, being able to cause him to react in this way. “It’s almost as if…”

“You’d make a great recruiter for the A.M., you know that? I’ll tell you the same thing I told Wadsworth, once upon a time. Fuck your experiments.”

 

“Lotta cars out there now. Lotsa traffic on the old...psychic highway. Want me to call you a cab to get back to campus?” All he can think is that this was a mistake. An interesting mistake, but a tiresome one. He did not care to have his power stripped away and then turned into some kind of leash. Even by her.

“You mean cheat a cab driver out of their hard-earned money? No thanks.” She flashed him the screen of her phone. “My Uber’s about to get here anyway.”

“Well, goodnight then.” He couldn't think of a reason to linger. Or rather, a reason that made sense.

“I know what you’re thinking, Damien.”

He froze. Darkness, flame-bright hair. Her lips. Grinned. “Oh really?”

“Not like that, idiot.” _Not yet._

Her ride pulled up to the curb just then, but she pressed a slip of paper into his palm, a scribbled address. “I mean you’re thinking about the experiment.”

(Wrong. Right?) “I can always get this from Dr. B’s charming assistant, you know. Maybe I already have.”

“Charming. Yes, I know you could get it. I don’t care. This is me giving it to you. If you change your mind, I think we could try and see what happens. You never know. Goodnight, Damien.”

He walked the long way home, telling himself he preferred the solitude, not wanting to admit the truth. He wanted to keep that feeling to himself, the sway of gravity, the silence and shocking pull when their powers met. And their skin. Her fingertips cold in his palm when she gave him the address.  _Her hand_. Her touch lingered like a brand.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> One experiment, and one lie.

“You’re...here.”

“Observant, aren’t we.” He had been sitting on her stoop for over a half hour, trying to talk himself out of it.

“Damien...it’s been...a shitty day.” She swallowed thickly. “I can barely hear my own thoughts. I don’t think I’m up for...”

“I thought that was why you wanted a guinea pig in the first place.” He was back in that uncertain place. Wrong-footed, too real. “I thought I could help. But you know what? Never mind...”

Her vision swam a little with fatigue. Everything was so loud. She thought of that dark pool of quiet with something like longing. She started to speak, then closed her eyes in defeat. She needed this.

She unlocked the building door and held it open for him to follow her.

+

As simple as his plan had seemed on the way over, his heart raced a little on the way up the stairs to her apartment. _What the ever loving fuck was he doing here?_

Chloe hadn’t said a word since unlocking the door. He waited awkwardly in the living room as she disappeared into the kitchen. His nerves were no better when she returned and sat down on the couch, some kind of ice pack pressed to her temples. She moved with a strange frailty, like a crystal glass vibrating at a frequency too high for human hearing. He was afraid if he moved, everything being held back (in him, in her) might crack and rocket to the surface.

The apartment was dark, lit only by the orange glow of the streetlights that filtered through gauzy curtains. Dozens of plants lined the windowsills, casting strange shadows on the floor at his feet.

She eventually looked up at him. “Okay then. Wonder twin powers, activate?”

“Huh?”

“It’s from a — never mind. Sit down.”

Damien sat on the far side of the couch. Chloe just looked at him expectantly, cradling the ice pack. “Listen, Chloe, I have no idea how you did that...whatever it is.”

“I know.” Her voice was low, almost hoarse. “You’ve only done it accidentally. I did it on purpose, um, twice.”

“So tell me what to do.”

“You’ll have to sit closer, first.” A dim echo of that sweet smile.

Damien stood to move closer. As he approached, she reached out and snagged him by the wrist. He lost his balance and half crashed into her lap.

As he stuttered an apology and tried to right himself on the couch, she was already leaning closer, too close, her eyes staring into his in the semi-darkness.

He belatedly registered her hand still on his wrist and pulled away (that warmth again, like a brand) because no one touched him like that.

“Let go.”

“No,” she said, concentrating. “Don’t be so difficult.”

He twisted in her grip, annoyed, and then she really dug in, her fingers surprisingly strong. “Let go, damn you.”

“No. You have to push back,” she said in a low hiss. “Show me.”

And then he did. Pissed off, wrist on fire, the rage came back, every petty little word he wanted to fling her way. He let his power bloom, fueled by it, and then he shoved it at her. Hard.

The power between them was a void, a vacuum, an unstoppable force. He felt it in his blood this time, singing. Pulling. His head drooped and her forehead was right there, touching his. For a moment, they shared one breath in that space between them, caught in it.

Then it ebbed and he wrested himself back from that edge (that scent in her hair, autumn, crackling with energy).

If he had flung that much power at Frank, he would have collapsed like a marionette with his strings cut.

Instead, Chloe smiled like the cat that got the cream. She exhaled slowly and her eyes opened very, very wide.

“Damien.”

“Happy now?”

“It’s...so quiet.”

He smiled at that, pleased. “Well, there you go. All better.”

“No, you don’t understand. It’s so quiet I can...hear you.”

“You...what?”

“I can hear you. Your thoughts. Only yours.”

Well, shit. _Don’t think about pink elephants._ He wasn’t proud of it, but he wrenched his arm away and was out the door before she could explain any further.

+

The strange thing was that it lingered a little after the door slammed behind him. Only a few minutes, but still. Blessed, blissful silence. Chloe hummed as she brewed a cup of kava tea and listened to the familiar babble of neighborhood voices return to her head. It was like waking from a full day’s sleep. Tabula rasa. Between her and Damien, they’d managed to hit the reset button on her brain and it was glorious.

Without a doubt, he’d be back. He would have questions.

He didn’t need to know about her little white lie. Not yet.

She hadn’t heard his thoughts, not exactly. In the quiet, the void that opened revealed something in the far distance. Like an echo, faint static on the radio, she sensed something in Damien’s mind amidst all that quiet. It felt like emptiness — no, like a hunger. It felt like there was something reaching towards her. For her.

When she had held his wrist, his pulse had raced under her fingertips. She smiled at the memory. Oh yes, he would be back.


End file.
